Puff Ho and SPLC Blame it all on Donald Trump

I guess they need someone to blame for why Americans are at each other’s throats following the reign of the most divisive, racist, arrogant, self-important anti-Semite ever to hold the office of President.

In an article that is difficult to distinguish from satire, the Puff Ho on Thursday ran a hit piece on Donald Trump, blaming him for everything the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) thinks is wrong with America. The SPLC recently published “The Trump Effect: The Impact of the Presidential Campaign on our Nation’s Schools.” They warn that “hatred, fear and bullying are on the rise” in schools. Drawing on the “poll” conducted by the SPLC, the Puff Ho found that

Overall, more than two-thirds of the teachers who took the survey reported that their students — mainly Muslims, immigrants and children of immigrants — were worried about what could happen to them and their families after the November election.

The poll of teachers, which was conducted by the “Teaching Tolerance” project of the SPLC , was admittedly “not scientific,” and does not even pretend to be even-handed or random. Those who responded were self-selected, and drawn from the membership and supporters of the SPLC.

Our survey of approximately 2,000 K-12 teachers was not scientific. Our email subscribers and those who visit our website are not a random sample of teachers nationally, and those who chose to respond to our survey are likely to be those who are most concerned about the impact of the presidential campaign on their students and schools.

It is, of course, far from certain that the respondents were even teachers, or that their reports are anything but anecdotal and politically biased, if not indeed pure fiction.

Nevertheless, the Puff Ho wants us to know that “over a third of the teachers said they’ve seen an increase in anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment among their students,” claiming that they “have had Muslim students called terrorists.”

The students are described as more “openly racist,” with

“vicious bullying of minorities, and more fear and anxiety among immigrants and minorities about what would happen to them if certain candidates for president are elected.”

Let’s try to figure out who these racist bullies are, since they are presumably not the Muslim students, who are, of course, hapless victims in all cases, always. Nor can it be the immigrants, or children of immigrants, or minorities, since these are the ones afraid of “what would happen to them if certain candidates for president are elected.”

And who are these “certain candidates” that the children fear? The respondents mentioned Donald Trump in more than 1000 comments — “five times more often than they mentioned any of the other candidates.”

To summarize, then, we find that the Muslims, immigrants, children of immigrants, and minorities, are all the victims of open racism and vicious bullying on the part of the “other” students –not specified, but we know who they are.

And this is all the fault of Donald Trump, whose

. . . xenophobic, populist rhetoric has brought the nation’s political discourse to new lows. When he’s not indirectly bragging about his genitalia or mocking disabled people, Trump has proposed banning Muslims from entering the country, embraced the use of war crimes to deal with terrorism suspects, and has accused Mexico of “sending rapists” to the United States.

as the Puff Ho helpfully instructs us.

Gadzooks, what next? Calling Ted Cruz a liar?

As one respondent said in a comment,

“There’s a sense that if someone doesn’t agree with you, it’s acceptable (even encouraged) to have hatred and anger towards them.”

. . . which certainly couldn’t describe anyone in the Democrat party, let alone, say, the current President, who always exhibits the utmost dignity and maturity in his dealings with those he disagrees with.